Why Do I Get Small Bumps on My Arms

You run your hand down the outside of your upper arm and the skin feels rough, like fine sandpaper. When you look closely, you can see lots of tiny raised spots, some the same colour as your skin and some a little redder or paler. They do not usually hurt. They rarely itch much. Yet they are easy to notice, especially in summer when your arms are bare, and easy to worry about, because smooth skin is what most of us expect to see. If that sounds familiar, you are far from alone. Millions of people have exactly this kind of skin on their arms, and for most of them it is a common, harmless pattern that comes and goes with the seasons, with dry air, and with the way their skin naturally renews itself. This article explains in plain words what those bumps usually are, why they form, what makes them look worse, and what simple everyday care can make the skin feel smoother, without promising a cure or pretending one product fixes everything.

The first thing worth knowing is that skin is not meant to be perfectly smooth like glass. It is a living surface that is always changing. Old skin cells flake away, new ones take their place, tiny hairs grow out of small openings called follicles, and natural oils keep the surface soft. When that quiet process runs smoothly, you hardly notice it. When one small part of it runs a little differently, you notice it at once, because your hands and your eyes are very good at picking up changes in texture. A rough patch on the arm is one of the most common examples of that. It is usually not a sign that something is seriously wrong. It is usually a sign that one part of the skin’s normal routine is working a little harder than usual, and the surface is showing it.

Many people first notice these bumps as teenagers, when the body is changing fast and the skin is producing more oil and more new cells. Others notice them in childhood, and the bumps simply stay around for years, fading a little here and there, then coming back in winter. Some people never think about them at all until a friend mentions them, or until they try on a sleeveless shirt and catch sight of their own arm in a mirror. There is no single age and no single moment when they must appear. That is part of why they can feel confusing. They arrive without an obvious cause, they do not behave like a rash that appears one day and clears the next, and they do not respond to the quick fixes that work for a spot or a bite. Understanding what is happening underneath the surface makes them much less worrying, and it also makes it easier to choose care that actually helps instead of care that only makes the skin more irritated.

What Those Small Bumps Usually Are

In general terms, the most common cause of small rough bumps on the upper arms is a skin pattern often called keratosis pilaris. The name sounds complicated, but the idea behind it is simple. Keratin is a tough protein that your skin and hair are made from. It protects the surface and gives it strength. Sometimes the skin makes a little too much of this protein around the tiny openings where hairs grow. The extra protein forms a small plug, a bit like a tiny cap over the opening, and the hair underneath cannot push through as easily as it should. The result is a small raised bump, often with a dry, rough top, and sometimes with a fine hair curled inside it that you can barely see.

These bumps are usually very small, about the size of a pinhead, and they tend to appear in groups rather than one at a time. On the arms they most often sit on the outer and back part of the upper arm, where the skin is thicker and drier than on the inner arm. They can also appear on the thighs, the cheeks, and the buttocks, but the arms are the place people notice first, because arms are visible and because we touch them often. The colour varies from person to person. On lighter skin the bumps may look slightly red or pink, especially after a hot shower or after rubbing. On darker skin they may look a little darker than the surrounding skin, or a little lighter, and the roughness is often more noticeable than the colour. The texture is the most consistent part. The skin feels uneven, dry, and slightly bumpy when you run your fingers over it, a feeling many people describe as being like sandpaper or like the skin of a chicken, which is why some people call it chicken skin in everyday talk.

It helps to know that this pattern is not a rash in the usual sense. A rash often spreads quickly, feels hot, itches strongly, or comes with swelling, and it usually has a clear trigger such as a new soap, a plant, or an insect bite. These arm bumps are different. They build up slowly, they stay in the same places for weeks or months, and they do not usually come with strong itching or pain. They are also not contagious. You cannot catch them from another person, and you cannot pass them to someone else by touching them. They are simply the way a particular person’s skin behaves. That does not mean they should be ignored if they change suddenly or start to bother you, and we will come to that later, but it does mean that finding them on your arms is not by itself a reason to panic.

Why the Skin Makes Them in the First Place

Skin renews itself all the time, and that renewal is a careful balance. New cells are made deep down, they move slowly towards the surface, and when they reach the top they dry out, flatten, and fall away without you noticing. Around each hair opening, that process has to be even more careful, because the opening must stay clear enough for the hair to grow out and for natural oil to reach the surface. When the skin makes slightly more keratin than usual in those spots, or when the old cells do not fall away as cleanly as they should, the opening can become partly blocked. The bump you feel is that small blockage sitting just under or at the surface, with the skin stretched a little over it.

Why does this happen to some people and not to others? A large part of the answer is family. This skin pattern often runs in families, so if a parent or a brother or sister has rough bumps on their arms, there is a good chance you will have them too. That does not mean it is anyone’s fault. It is simply one of the many small differences in how bodies are built, like curly hair or freckles. Some people’s skin makes keratin a little more eagerly. Some people’s hair openings are a little narrower. Some people’s skin is naturally drier, so old cells cling on longer instead of falling away. None of these is a defect. They are variations, and the skin is still doing its job of protecting the body underneath. The bumps are a side effect of that protection being a little too thorough in one place.

Age also plays a part. The pattern often starts in childhood or in the teenage years, when the skin and the hair are changing quickly. It can be at its most noticeable in the teenage years and in the twenties, and for many people it slowly becomes less obvious as they get older, sometimes fading a great deal by middle age. That is not a promise, and it does not happen for everyone, but it is a common pattern, and it is one reason health information often describes this as something people grow out of, at least partly. Hormones, growth, and changes in how much oil the skin makes all play a part in that slow shift, though no one factor explains it fully. What matters for you is that the bumps are linked to the normal life of your skin, not to something you did wrong.

Why They Show Up More on the Arms

The arms are a good place to understand why these bumps choose certain spots. The skin on the outer upper arm is exposed to a lot. It gets sun and wind when you are outside. It rubs against shirt sleeves when you move. It dries out faster than the skin under your arm or on your stomach, because it is out in the open air. At the same time, it has plenty of fine hairs and hair openings, so there are many places where a small plug can form. Put those facts together and you have a spot where the skin is both busy and dry, which is exactly the combination where rough bumps tend to gather.

The thighs are similar, and that is why many people find the same bumps there as well. The cheeks can show them in children for a similar reason: the skin there is exposed to cold air and wind, and it is often wiped and rubbed. The pattern is not random. It follows the places where the skin is thicker, drier, and full of small hair openings. The inner arm, by contrast, stays softer and smoother, because it is protected, it stays warmer and a little damper, and it is not rubbed in the same way. If you compare the two sides of your own arm, you can often see that difference clearly, and it tells you a lot about how much the surface of the skin is shaped by what it meets every day.

Clothing matters more than people expect. A tight sleeve that rubs the same patch of skin hour after hour can make the area feel rougher, because rubbing pushes the skin to make more of its protective protein. A rough fabric can do the same. That does not mean clothes cause the bumps on their own. The tendency is already there. But friction can make the bumps stand out more, and it can make the skin around them look redder. The same is true of hot water. A very hot shower feels relaxing, but it strips natural oil from the surface, and when the skin dries out, the bumps feel harder and look more obvious. Small daily habits like these do not create the pattern, yet they can turn it up or turn it down, and that is useful to know, because it means simple changes can make a visible difference.

Dry Skin, Weather and the Seasons

If you have these bumps, you may already have noticed that they are worse in winter. That is one of the most reliable patterns people report, and it has a clear reason. Cold air holds very little moisture, and heated rooms are often dry as well. The skin loses water to the air more quickly, the surface becomes drier, and old cells cling on instead of falling away. The plugs around the hair openings feel harder, the skin looks paler and rougher, and the bumps seem to multiply, even though the number may not have changed much at all. It is the dryness that makes them stand out.

Summer often brings the opposite. Warm, humid air keeps the skin softer, sweat and natural oil reach the surface more easily, and the bumps can feel smoother and look less obvious. Sunlight can also change how they look, because a light tan can even out the colour of the skin around them, though that is not a reason to spend long hours in strong sun, which brings its own harm. Some people find their arms look best in late summer, after weeks of warm weather and shorter, cooler showers, and worst in the middle of winter, when the air is cold, the heating is on, and the skin is washed in hot water every day. Noticing that seasonal rhythm is helpful, because it tells you that the skin is responding to its surroundings, and it gives you a realistic idea of what to expect through the year.

Dryness is not only about weather. It is also about washing. Soap and hot water are good at cleaning, but they also remove the thin layer of natural oil that keeps the surface soft. If you wash your arms with strong soap twice a day and then dry them roughly with a towel, you are taking that oil away twice and giving it no time to return. The skin then feels tight and rough, and the bumps feel sharper under your fingers. This is true for many skin patterns, not only this one, and it is why gentle washing matters so much. A short, lukewarm shower, a mild cleanser used lightly, and a soft towel patted rather than rubbed can leave the skin in a much better state than a long, hot, soapy wash. The change is not dramatic on the first day, but over a week or two the difference is often easy to feel.

What the Bumps Feel Like Day to Day

For most people, these bumps are more of a texture problem than a pain problem. They do not usually hurt when you touch them. They do not usually itch the way a bite or a rash itches. What they do is make the skin feel uneven, and that uneven feeling can be distracting, especially when you are getting dressed, when you rest your arm on a table, or when someone else touches your arm. Some people say they notice the roughness most when they put on a cream or a lotion, because the cream catches on the raised spots. Others notice it most in certain light, when the small shadows from each bump make the whole area look speckled.

Itching does happen for some people, but it is usually mild and it usually comes when the skin is very dry. A dry surface itches more easily, and the bumps themselves can feel tight when the skin around them is stretched by cold air or by hot water. Scratching, though, rarely helps. It can break the surface, make the area redder, and leave small marks that take longer to fade than the original bump. Picking at the bumps is even less helpful. It is tempting, because each bump feels like something that should come out, but squeezing or picking tears the skin around the hair opening, and that can lead to redness, a small sore, or a mark that stays after the bump itself has gone. The skin heals slowly on the upper arm, so a picked spot can be visible for weeks. Leaving the bumps alone, even when they are annoying, is one of the kindest things you can do for your skin.

The emotional side of this is worth saying plainly too. Skin is visible, and visible differences affect how people feel about themselves, even when the difference is harmless. Some people avoid short sleeves, or they keep their arms covered in warm weather, or they feel embarrassed when someone notices the roughness. That feeling is real, and it is not silly. At the same time, it helps to remember how common this is. If you look around a room of people in summer clothes, a good number of them will have the same texture on their arms, whether or not you notice it. Most people are far less focused on your arms than you are, and most people who do notice will recognise it as ordinary skin, not as something strange. That does not remove the wish for smoother skin, but it can take some of the worry out of it.

Simple Everyday Skin Care That Often Helps

There is no quick cure for these bumps, and any product that promises to make them vanish overnight should be treated with caution. What does help, for many people, is steady, gentle care over weeks. The goal is not to strip the skin or to scrub the bumps away. The goal is to keep the surface soft and moist, so that old cells fall away more easily and the plugs around the hair openings do not feel so hard. That starts with moisturising. A plain, thick cream or lotion, used once or twice a day, puts back some of the moisture that washing and dry air take away. It works best when it is put on soon after a shower, while the skin is still slightly damp, because it then seals in the water that is already there. A thin, watery lotion often disappears too quickly. A richer cream stays on the surface longer and leaves the skin feeling softer for more hours.

The second part of gentle care is mild exfoliation, which simply means helping old cells fall away. That does not mean scrubbing hard with a rough brush or a harsh grainy wash. Hard scrubbing irritates the skin, makes it redder, and can make the bumps look worse. Gentle exfoliation means using a soft washcloth, or a mild product made for sensitive skin, lightly and only a few times a week, and then moisturising afterwards. The idea is to loosen the dry surface slowly, not to force it off. If the skin feels sore, tight, or redder after you try something, that is a clear sign to stop and go back to plain moisturiser for a while. Skin that is calm will smooth out more easily than skin that is irritated.

Washing habits matter just as much as creams. Keep showers short and lukewarm rather than long and very hot. Use a mild cleanser, and use it lightly on the arms rather than scrubbing the whole area twice. After the shower, pat the skin dry with a soft towel instead of rubbing it hard. Then put on moisturiser while the skin is still a little damp. In winter, when the air is driest, you may need a thicker cream and you may need to use it twice a day. In summer, a lighter lotion may be enough. These are small steps, and none of them is expensive, but together they change the conditions the skin lives in, and that is what makes the bumps feel less rough over time. It is also worth giving any change at least two or three weeks before you judge it. Skin renews itself slowly, and a cream used for two days cannot undo weeks of dryness.

What Does Not Usually Help, and What to Avoid

Because the bumps are annoying, it is easy to reach for strong solutions, and many of them do more harm than good. The most common mistake is scrubbing. A hard brush, a rough glove, or a strong grainy scrub feels as though it must be working, because the skin feels smoother for an hour afterwards. But the roughness returns, often worse, because the scrub has irritated the surface and the skin has responded by making more of its protective layer. The same is true of very strong soaps, antiseptic washes, and home mixtures that promise to burn or dissolve the bumps. They strip the skin, leave it dry and sore, and make the texture more noticeable, not less.

Picking and squeezing are also best avoided, as we have already said, but they deserve repeating here because they are the habit most people struggle with. Each bump looks like something small that should come out, and the urge to pick is strong, especially when you are bored or anxious. The trouble is that the bump is not a spot with something inside it to remove. It is a small plug of skin protein, attached to the surface around it. Squeezing tears that surface, and the tear can become red, sore, and slow to heal. It can also leave a small dark or pale mark that stays long after the bump has settled. If you find yourself picking without thinking, it can help to keep your hands busy, to keep the skin moisturised so it feels less tempting, and to notice the moments when you pick most, so you can change the habit gently rather than blaming yourself for it.

Tanning is another approach that does not help in the long run. Sunlight can make the bumps look less obvious for a few weeks, because the skin around them darkens and the colour evens out. But the smoothing effect is only visual, and the cost is real: strong sun dries the skin, damages it, and raises the risk of skin problems later in life. A sunbed is no better, and it carries the same risks. If you want your arms to look more even in summer, a plain moisturiser and clothes you feel comfortable in are safer than trying to tan the bumps away. Similarly, covering the bumps with heavy makeup or thick creams may hide them for an evening, but it can block the hair openings further and make the skin feel worse the next day. Light, simple care is almost always the better choice.

When It Is Worth Asking a Health Professional

Most of the time, these bumps are a matter for everyday care, not for urgent attention. But there are moments when it is sensible to ask a health professional, such as a pharmacist or a doctor, for a look. If the bumps suddenly spread to new areas, change shape, become very red, swollen, or painful, or start to ooze or crust, that is a change worth checking, because it may be something other than the usual pattern. If the skin itches so much that it disturbs your sleep, or if scratching has left open sores that do not heal, that is also worth a conversation. And if the bumps are making you feel very low or very self-conscious, that matters too, and a health professional can talk through the options and reassure you about what is normal.

It also helps to ask if you are unsure what you are looking at. Other skin patterns can look similar at first glance: a mild rash, dry skin from a new soap, small spots from heat, or a skin pattern that comes with itching and flaking. A health professional can look closely, ask about your family history, and tell you whether what you have matches the usual pattern or whether something else is going on. That visit does not need to be dramatic. It is simply a way of getting a clear answer instead of guessing from pictures online. If a treatment is ever suggested, it will usually be a simple cream to be used carefully over time, not a quick fix, and it will come with advice about how to use it safely. General information in an article can explain the background, but it cannot replace that personal look at your own skin.

My Take:

If you ask me what I think about small rough bumps on the arms, my first thought is that they are one of those things that look like a problem and mostly are not. I have seen how much worry a rough patch of skin can cause, and I think a lot of that worry comes from the way we expect skin to look. We see smooth skin in photographs, in advertisements, in films, and we start to believe that anything less than perfect is a sign that something has gone wrong. The truth is much more ordinary. Skin is a living surface, it is always renewing itself, and it does not renew itself perfectly in every spot. A small bump on the arm is usually just a place where that renewal has been a little overenthusiastic, where a bit too much protein has gathered around a hair and made a tiny raised spot. That is not a failure. It is a variation, and variations are part of having a body.

I think the hardest part of this is not the bumps themselves but the way they make people feel about being seen. I understand that feeling, because skin is public in a way that most of the body is not. You cannot hide your arms easily in hot weather, and you should not have to. Yet I have heard from people who keep a long sleeve on through summer, who avoid swimming, who feel a small rush of embarrassment when someone touches their arm and notices the texture. That embarrassment is real, and I do not want to dismiss it by saying the bumps are harmless and leaving it there. Harmless does not mean unimportant. If something affects how you move through the world, it matters, even if a doctor would call it mild. My view is that we should take that feeling seriously, and at the same time keep it in proportion. Most people have some patch of skin that is not as smooth as they would like, and most people who notice your arms will think of it as ordinary, not as something strange.

What I would say to a friend who asked me about this is to start with the simplest explanation and the simplest care, and to give that care time. I would tell them what the bumps usually are, in plain words, so they are not left imagining something worse. I would tell them that it often runs in families, that it often starts young, that it often gets worse in dry winter air and better in warm humid weather, and that none of that means they did something wrong. Then I would talk about washing and moisturising, because in my view those two habits do more than any expensive product. A short lukewarm shower, a mild cleanser, a soft towel, and a thick plain cream put on while the skin is still damp: that is not glamorous advice, and it will not make a good advertisement, but it is the advice that actually changes how skin feels over a few weeks. I would rather give a friend that honest, boring routine than send them off to buy a shelf of strong creams that promise miracles and deliver irritation.

I also think it is important to be honest about what simple care cannot do. Moisturiser will not make the bumps disappear completely, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something. What it can do is make the skin softer, make the bumps feel less sharp, and make them look less obvious, especially in winter. That is a real improvement, and it is worth having, but it is not a cure, and I think people should know that before they start, so they are not disappointed after a week and do not jump to something harsher. Skin changes slowly. The cells on the surface today were made weeks ago, and the cells you are caring for now will only reach the surface later. That slow pace is frustrating, but it is also reassuring, because it means a gentle routine has time to work, and a single bad day of scrubbing or picking does not ruin everything. Patience is not just a virtue here. It is part of how skin works.

The habit I would most want a friend to drop is picking. I know how tempting it is. Each bump feels like a small thing that should come out, and the hand moves before the mind has decided. But I have seen what picking leaves behind: redness, small sores, and marks that last far longer than the bump ever would. The bump itself is harmless. The mark left by picking is a wound, and wounds on the upper arm heal slowly. If I could give one piece of practical advice, it would be to keep the skin moisturised so it feels less tempting, to keep your nails short, and to notice when you pick most, because for many people it happens when they are bored, tired, or worried, not when the skin is actually worse. Changing a habit like that is not about willpower alone. It is about making the habit harder to do and giving your hands something else to do instead.

I also want to say something about the strong products that are sold for this kind of skin, because I think the market around it is noisy and confusing. There are creams, scrubs, washes, and home mixtures, all claiming to smooth the skin, and some of them do help a little when they are used gently and carefully. But many of them are too strong for daily use, and the strongest ones can leave the skin red, dry, and sore. My view is simple: start with the mildest thing that could help, use it steadily, and only think about something stronger if a pharmacist or a doctor suggests it. Do not buy three new products at once, because if the skin gets worse you will not know which one caused it. Do not scrub hard, because scrubbing feels productive and is usually counterproductive. And do not believe a before-and-after photograph, because lighting and moisturiser can change how skin looks in a picture far more than any cream can change the skin itself.

There is a wider point here that I keep coming back to, and it is about how we talk about skin. We talk about it as if it should be flawless, and we treat every small difference as a problem to be fixed. I think that is unfair to the body, and I think it makes people spend money and time on things that do not matter, while ignoring the simple habits that do. A rough patch on the arm is not a sign that you are dirty, or unhealthy, or doing something wrong. It is a sign that your skin makes a little extra protein in one place. That is all. If you can accept that, and still take care of your skin gently, you are in a much better place than someone who scrubs and picks and worries and buys every new product, because the second person is fighting their own skin, and the skin always fights back by becoming more irritated.

I think families have a part to play here too. If a parent notices these bumps on a child, the kindest response is a calm one. Do not make a fuss, do not pick at the child’s arm, and do not tell the child that their skin looks bad. Just make moisturising part of the daily routine, the way brushing teeth is part of the routine, and let the child grow up thinking of it as normal care, not as a treatment for something shameful. Children learn how to feel about their bodies from the adults around them, and a calm, matter-of-fact attitude will protect them far more than any cream. The same is true for adults talking to each other. A comment about someone’s rough arms, even meant lightly, can stay with them for a long time. A little kindness costs nothing.

So my final view is this. Small bumps on the arms are common, they are usually harmless, they often run in families, and they often get worse in dry weather and better in warm weather. Simple care helps: short lukewarm showers, mild washing, patting dry, and a thick plain moisturiser used steadily. Picking and hard scrubbing do not help, and strong products should be used only with professional advice. If the skin changes suddenly, becomes painful, or starts to affect your sleep or your mood, ask a health professional to look at it. Otherwise, take care of your skin gently, give it time, and try not to let a rough patch decide what you wear or how you feel about yourself. That is not giving up. It is choosing a calm, honest approach over a frantic one, and in my experience that approach works better for skin, and for the person living in it.

If a friend asked me for one small routine to start with, I would keep it very simple. I would say: take a short shower, not a long hot one, wash gently, pat dry, and put on a plain thick cream while your skin is still a little damp. Do that every day for three weeks, and do not add anything else. Do not scrub, do not pick, and do not buy a new product in the middle of the three weeks. At the end of that time, run your hand over your arm and see how it feels. It will probably not be perfectly smooth, and that is fine. It will probably feel softer, less dry, and less rough than before, and that is a real result. Then keep going, because skin care is not a project with a finish line. It is a daily habit, like drinking water or getting enough sleep, and its value builds up quietly over months.

I would also tell that friend not to compare their arms with anyone else’s. Some people have naturally smooth arms, and some do not, and that difference is not a measure of health or cleanliness. It is like hair texture or height: a difference, not a ranking. The goal is not to have someone else’s skin. The goal is to have your own skin in the best condition it can be in, with care that is gentle, steady, and affordable. That is a goal you can reach, and it is a goal that leaves you feeling better, not worse, about the body you live in. And if, after all that, the bumps still bother you a great deal, talk to a health professional, not to an advertisement, because a real person who can see your skin will give you better advice than any product label ever will.

One more thing I want to add, because I think it is often missed, is the value of simply noticing the pattern over a few weeks. If you keep a short note, even just a line a day, about when the bumps look worse and when they look better, you will often see a clear story emerge. Perhaps they are always rougher after a long hot shower, or after a week of cold dry weather, or when you have forgotten to moisturise for a few days. That note does not need to be detailed, and it does not need to be kept forever. A week or two is enough to show you which habits help and which do not, and that knowledge is more useful than any single product recommendation, because it is about your own skin, in your own life, in your own weather. I like that kind of noticing, because it puts you in charge. You are no longer guessing, or copying what worked for someone else, or buying something because an advertisement told you to. You are watching your own skin and learning from it, and that is a skill that will help you long after this particular patch of bumps has faded from your mind.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I do in general when I get small bumps on my arms happens?

In general, gentle care helps most. Keep showers short and lukewarm, wash with a mild cleanser, pat the skin dry, and put a thick plain moisturiser on while the skin is still slightly damp. Avoid hard scrubbing and picking, which can make the skin redder and leave marks. Give the routine two or three weeks before judging it, because skin changes slowly. If you are unsure, ask a pharmacist or a doctor to look at your skin.

Can small daily habits really help with I get small bumps on my arms?

Yes, small daily habits often help more than strong products. Regular moisturising keeps the surface softer, so the bumps feel less rough. Lukewarm water instead of very hot water stops the skin drying out so much. Gentle washing, rather than scrubbing, avoids irritating the area. None of these habits removes the bumps completely, but together they can make the skin feel smoother and look less obvious, especially in dry winter weather.

Does I get small bumps on my arms happen to many people?

Yes, it happens to a great many people. Small rough bumps on the upper arms are one of the most common skin patterns, and they often run in families. They commonly start in childhood or the teenage years, and many people have them for years. Because they are so common, most people who notice them will recognise them as ordinary skin, not as something unusual.

Can I get small bumps on my arms be linked to sleep or tiredness?

Not directly. The bumps themselves are not caused by poor sleep or by being tired. However, when you are tired you may notice your skin more, and you may be more likely to scratch or pick at it without thinking. Dry skin can also itch more at night, which can disturb sleep. So sleep and tiredness do not create the bumps, but they can make the experience of having them feel worse, and good rest and gentle skin care together help more than either alone.

How long does I get small bumps on my arms usually last?

There is no fixed length of time. For many people the bumps are present for months or years, coming and going with the seasons. They often look worse in winter and better in summer. For some people they fade a great deal with age, while for others they stay in a milder form into adult life. Because the pattern is slow to change, it is best to judge any skin care routine over several weeks, not over a few days.

When should I speak with a healthcare professional about I get small bumps on my arms?

Speak with a healthcare professional if the bumps change suddenly, spread to new areas, become very red, swollen or painful, or start to ooze or crust. Also ask for advice if itching disturbs your sleep, if scratching has left sores that do not heal, or if the bumps are making you feel very low or self-conscious. A health professional can look at your skin, confirm what it is, and suggest safe care for your own situation.